2020 D.C. Circuit US Court of Appeals Case Law

Justia Opinion Summary: Section 19(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is not available as a means to challenge the reasonableness of generally-applicable fee rules. At issue in this appeal is whether fees that national securities exchang...

Justia Opinion Summary: Following an incident at President Trump's 2019 Social Media Summit involving Appellee Brian Karem, a journalist with a hard pass, and Sebastian Gorka, a Summit attendee, the Press Secretary suspended Karem's pass for th...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit against the Attorney General of the United States in his official capacity as head of the Department of Justice (DOJ), alleging that the DOJ had denied her a promotion to a Division Director position...

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant contends that he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the direct appeal of his murder conviction in D.C. Superior Court. Appellant alleged that his appellate counsel labored under two conflicts of...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the validity of District of Columbia regulations that impose minimum education requirements for certain childcare providers. The district court held that the case was non-justiciable on...

Justia Opinion Summary: After appellant asked the Board to expunge or amend Army investigators' determinations recorded in his military files, the Board denied his application and the district court sustained its decision.
The DC Circuit reve...

Justia Opinion Summary: The district court remanded the Fiscal Year 2014 Rule to the Secretary of Health and Human Services without vacating the Rule. The district court's decision was made in response to the challenge by a group of hospitals t...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit granted Maryland's petition for review of the EPA's denial of its Clean Air Act section 126(b) petition requesting that the EPA impose additional limitations on certain upwind sources that were purportedly...

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant, an Algerian national detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, asks the court to hold that the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause categorically applies in full to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and that his ongoi...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit against George Washington University, alleging that it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to provide a reasonable accommodation and discriminating against her because of he...

Justia Opinion Summary: FlyersRights claimed that airlines were not giving passengers sufficient notice of their right to compensation for delays in flights and urged the Department to issue regulations requiring the airlines to print written s...

Justia Opinion Summary: PMRS petitioned for review of the FDA's denial of PMRS's application to market a prescription opioid drug. The DC Circuit rejected PMRS's challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and held that the FDA's d...

Justia Opinion Summary: This case arose out of the FAA and NPS's efforts to regulate commercial sightseeing flights over national parks. The Air Tour Management Act of 2000 directs the FAA and NPS to "make every effort" to establish rules gover...

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, found liable for multiple securities fraud violations, petitioned for review in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which is the wrong court. By the time petitioner realized his mistake and filed the p...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit vacated defendant's sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to unlawful possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base, or crack, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(iii)...

Justia Opinion Summary: When the EPA promulgated the emission standard for pulp mill combustion sources in 2001, EPA addressed some but not all the hazardous air pollutants they are known to emit. In 2017, EPA conducted its first section 112(d)...

Justia Opinion Summary: Hall filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking records from the EPA related to the agency's purported adoption of a "nonacquiescence decision." The judgment at issue is that of the United States Cou...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit challenging the Navy Secretary's refusal to grant him a waiver of statutory requirements that govern his eligibility for incentive pay. After determining that plaintiff has abandoned his substantive...

Justia Opinion Summary: Three scientists who had previously received EPA grants and served on advisory committees, as well as several non-profit organizations, filed suit arguing that the EPA's directive, which now prohibits all grant recipient...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit vacated the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress evidence. The court held that officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they seized defendant because they lacked reasonable suspicio...

Justia Opinion Summary: After the EPA issued guidelines for two categories of solid waste incinerator over two years ago, the Administrator has not imposed a federal plan on noncompliant States. Sierra Club filed suit under the Clean Air Act's...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit reversed the district court's judgment and remanded with instructions to grant defendant's motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255. Defendant was convicted of murder almost 50 years ago. The gov...

Justia Opinion Summary: The families of American victims of a 2002 bombing in the West Bank filed suit against the Palestinian Defendants, alleging that defendant are liable for the attack on the theory that they enabled the bombing through the...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff, a former employee of the FAA, filed suit against the Secretary of Transportation for unlawful retaliation and discrimination, and the Secretary of Transportation and the Department of Labor for violation of he...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit held that FERC's rejection of Gulf South's application for incremental-plus rates was arbitrary and capricious. The court held that FERC failed to justify the disparity between how materially identical shi...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit denied petitions for writs of mandamus seeking vacatur of all orders issued by the former presiding military judge because of the appearance of partiality. Petitioners are being tried before a military tri...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit granted the petitions for review of the EPA's 2018 Rule, which suspended the prior listing of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) as unsafe substitutes in its entirety. Consequently, even current users of ozone-depl...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit denied a petition for review of the Department's determination that Hagerstown Airport was not eligible for federally subsidized air service because it did not meet the statutory "enplanement" requirement....

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit vacated the district court's preliminary injunction enjoining four plaintiffs from being executed. Plaintiffs claimed that the 2019 execution protocol and addendum violate the Federal Death Penalty Act of...

Justia Opinion Summary: Western Surety filed suit against US Engineering, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief regarding its potential liability under a construction performance bond. Western Surety claimed that its obligations under the b...

Justia Opinion Summary: BGE petitioned for review of FERC's orders arising out of its efforts to apply its "matching" principles to divergences between the timing of deductions for tax purposes and timing for purposes of allocating costs to rat...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed the various challenged rulings, but remanded the ineffective assistance of counsel claims to the district court. In this case, appellant was convicted for kidnapping and unlawful possession with i...

Justia Opinion Summary: On remand, appellant asserted various ineffective assistance of counsel claims during the suppression stage, based on counsel's failure to move for STA dismissal, based on counsel's failure to call a witness, and based o...

Justia Opinion Summary: The county sought to revoke two exemptions the Board granted with respect to a freight rail easement over the county's property, alleging that both notices misrepresented the easement's ownership. The Board denied the pe...

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant filed a qui tam action under the False Claims Act, alleging that KBR and various subcontractors defrauded the US Government by inflating costs and accepting kickbacks while administering military contracts in w...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit against his former employer, claiming that Mastro's deprived him and other servers of a minimum wage in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the District of Columbia's Minimum Wage Revision...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the petition for review challenging the Commission's order approving the continued use of admittedly outdated accounting rules for an ever-dwindling number of telephone companies...

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, a Guantanamo detainee, sought a writ of mandamus asking the court to prevent the government from proceeding with destruction of a particular detention center ("Site A"). The DC Circuit denied relief, finding...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit dismissed the State's petition challenging the FAA's amended flight paths to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as untimely. Although the State acknowledged that its petition was filed well after th...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking to compel the release of records related to an incident in which plaintiff was stabbed from behind with a screwdriver in prison.
The DC Circuit a...

Justia Opinion Summary: The Committee seeks to obtain the redacted grand jury materials referenced in the Special Counsel's Report in connection with its impeachment investigation of President Trump. The Committee requested three categories of...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for conspiracy to deal heroin and other drugs. The court held that defendant has failed to demonstrate prejudice from the government's belated disclosure of a h...

Justia Opinion Summary: The Hospital petitioned for review of an administrative decision affirming the Secretary's citation for violating the General Duty Clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) by inadequately protecting its em...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs, Chinese citizens who were imprisoned for expressing dissent on the internet, filed suit alleging that, as part of an earlier settlement, Yahoo established a charitable trust to provide humanitarian and legal...

Justia Opinion Summary: Separation-of-powers principles and historical practice compelled the DC Circuit to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction the Committee's suit to enforce the congressional subpoena against the Executive Branch. After the Comm...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions for conspiracy to commit bank robbery by intimidation. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's finding that defendants agreed to rob by intimi...

Justia Opinion Summary: NTCH challenged the Commission's three spectrum-management decisions: first, the Commission "modified" Dish Network's license in the AWS-4 Band to authorize the company to develop a stand-alone terrestrial network that c...

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant filed suit claiming damages under the Consent Decree created in the 1999 settlement between the Department of Agriculture and a class of African American farmers. After the arbitrator denied the claims, appella...

Justia Opinion Summary: Jackson served in the Marine Corps, 1977-1991. Almost 30 years after his honorable discharge, Jackson filed a pro se complaint alleging that toward the end of his military career, his supervising officers discriminated a...

Justia Opinion Summary: Kentucky and Arkansas residents sued the Secretary of Health and Human Services based on the approval under 42 U.S.C. 1315(a) of an “experimental, pilot, or demonstration projects which, in the judgment of the Secretary,...

Justia Opinion Summary: Since the 1940s, the U.S. Navy operated a landfill on the island of Guam, containing discarded munitions, chemicals, and everyday garbage. The Ordot Dump lacked any environmental safeguards. The EPA added Ordot to its Na...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed Defendants Cooper and Bryant's appeal of their convictions and sentences for theft of public money and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The court held that the district court correctly con...

Justia Opinion Summary: Baystate filed suit against the Secretary, challenging his promulgation of a final rule calculating the wage index for hospital reimbursements in 2017. Baystate alleged that the Secretary failed to comply with the statut...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's suit, alleging that President Trump violated the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 by obscuring liabilities on financial disclosure reports, because pl...

Justia Opinion Summary: The Narragansett Tribe petitioned for review of the Commission's order denying its motion to intervene in a natural gas pipeline certificate proceeding after the certificate to build a pipeline had issued. While the Trib...

Justia Opinion Summary: 215 Members of the Congress sued President Donald J. Trump based on allegations that he has repeatedly violated the United States Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause. The district court denied the President's motion...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions for conspiring to traffic wholesale quantities of cocaine into the United States. The court found no grounds for reversal, holding that the evidence presented at trial did...

Justia Opinion Summary: Duquesne petitioned for review of the Board's decision and order requiring the school to bargain with a union representing the school's adjunct facility. Duquesne argued that its religious mission places it beyond the Bo...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit denied a petition for review of the Commission's order finding that the company violated regulations promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). In this case, the company had hired a cons...

Justia Opinion Summary: The First Amendment does not create an implied damages action against officials in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for retaliatory administrative enforcement actions under the Financial Institutions R...

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff, a white male of Chilean origin, filed suit under Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), alleging that WMATA failed to promote him on the basis of age and national origin and later retal...

Justia Opinion Summary: In the GM/Ford action, AARC filed suit under the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) for alleged violations of the Act. A second, substantially similar lawsuit was filed by AARC against FCA and Mitsubishi. The district court...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit reversed the district court's order dismissing, based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction, a pre-enforcement challenge to the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), brough...

Justia Opinion Summary: After apprehension and extradition to the United States, defendants were convicted each on four counts: two counts under 18 U.S.C. 1114, which criminalizes the killing of an officer or employee of the United States; one...

Justia Opinion Summary: The Trust appealed the district court's decision finding that the Trust failed to show that its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit caused the agencies to change their positions. In this case, the Trust requested reco...

Justia Opinion Summary: This appeal arose out of the unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 somewhere over the Southern Indian Ocean in the early hours of March 8, 2014. Representatives of many of the passengers filed suit...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit reversed the district court's grant of the USDA's motion to dismiss, based on failure to state a claim, an action brought under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by two animal-rights groups, alleging...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit denied Rain for Rent's petition for review of a $116 fine under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. Rain for Rent was given a citation after an employee forgot to set the parking brake on a com...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for six counts of sex trafficking and related crimes against minors, rejecting his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The court held that the existing record left...

Justia Opinion Summary: The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's holding that defendant's prior bank robbery convictions were crimes of violence and affirmed the denial of defendant's motion for post-conviction relief. The court need not re...